Link Building Strategy for SEO 101

Conor Treacy

Link Building Strategy for SEO 101

In order to come up with the right strategy for SEO, Omaha businesses generally have to look at multiple components of their online marketing. The reason it’s important to look at the whole picture is because neglecting even a single aspect can reduce the effectiveness of a strategy for SEO. In recent years, there has been a specific aspect of SEO that far too many businesses have started to inadvertently overlook.

Link building is the aspect that not enough businesses are taking into consideration. This is because there’s a lot of misinformation online about the role of link building. Based on comments that are often made in forums or even on blogs, plenty of Omaha businesses are under the impression that they can rank well without really thinking about links.

When a business starts operating with that assumption, it creates a much harder path for them to follow. Since links are still a big part of Google’s algorithm, trying to rank well for competitive keyword phrases while only focusing on things like social media signals can be a losing battle.

Big Red SEO has been contacted by many Omaha businesses with SEO issues that are directly tied to link building, so we want to use this post to help set the record straight on the right way to approach link building in 2015 and beyond.

Quality Will Always Trump Quantity

Although links remain an important part of any successful strategy for SEO, that doesn’t mean you want to run out and start trying to acquire as many links as possible. In fact, doing so is likely to lead to a penalty from Google. The first problem with pursuing huge quantities of links is that the majority of links that a business will get are going to be low quality or spam.

The easiest way to understand the way that Google views links is as a type of rating system. When a website with a good reputation links to another website, Google views it as that reputable site vouching for the site they’re linking to. On the other hand, if a link comes from a site with a poor reputation, Google isn’t going to view that association in a positive light.

The other problem with trying to accumulate links in bulk is it often requires using automated tools that can be very close to spamming. Since this type of activity breaks Google’s guidelines, their algorithm has filters in place that can detect and penalize sites engaged in automated link building on a massive scale.

While the promise of hundreds or even thousands of links in a short amount of time can be tempting, the simple fact is this is not a sustainable or effective strategy for SEO. If you want your business to rank well for relevant keywords without having to worry about being penalized by Google, you’re definitely going to need other sites to link to you. However, it’s just as important that you obtain those links from the right sources and in the right way.

Great Content is the Key to Acquiring Quality Links in 2015

Even though Google is vague about some aspects of their view towards link building, they are very clear on other topics. One area where Google is very clear is that directly paying for links breaks their guidelines and can be penalized by lost rankings. Since buying links is a very risky activity, many Omaha business owners are left wondering how they can attract links from reputable sites without risking a major a penalty.

The answer is to consistently publish and promote great content. If you take a standard website or blog, it’s generally not going to want to link to the homepage of a random business. But what websites and blogs do want to do is provide as much value as possible to their visitors. As a result, they’re usually more than happy to link to a blog post on a topic that’s useful to their audience.

Since sites and blogs are always looking for useful things to share with their visitors, Omaha businesses can earn links by creating the type of content that other sites want to share. Making the most of this strategy for SEO requires three components. The first component is publishing truly useful content on a regular basis.

The second component is properly promoting content. This is where many businesses encounter issues. Although they are publishing great content, they end up frustrated because virtually no one is reading it or linking. Since there is so much content online, new posts need to be promoted in order to get in front of the right audiences.

Finally, a website needs to be properly designed and architected to reap the benefits of the links it attracts. If a site doesn’t have a strong internal link structure, it may still have a difficult time ranking. If you’re concerned about any of these issues, your best bet is to work with Big Red SEO.

Craft and Execute the Right Strategy for SEO: (402) 522-6468

If you want the website for your Omaha business to start doing more to help your business grow, you need the right strategy for SEO. But as we covered in the sections above, you can’t simply dive into SEO with the goal of securing as many links as possible. In fact, that type of approach can have a very negative outcome.

In order to do SEO in a way that’s effective and sustainable, the right plan needs to be in place from the very beginning. Ensuring that SEO efforts are set up and executed properly are why many businesses turn to Big Red SEO for help. Thanks to our experience in this field, we’re able to do everything that’s required for SEO to be done right.

So if you want your business to reap all the benefits of a strong strategy for SEO while also avoiding the pitfalls that can occur when the right plan isn’t in place, call Big Red SEO today at (402) 522-6468 to discuss more about your business and how the right SEO strategy can help it grow.

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